Well, this is not to say that im discouraged by the manuscript rejections by the publishers. The fact that annoys me the most is that they reject with a very blunt reply (either email or post). Okay, agreed, that they are rather busy folks. But if they have time to reply, they can surely spare a few seconds to add why. Atleast a line stating if it was because of full publishing schedule or the story was crap. Dont ye think that the writer may doubt his own abilities cause of it?
Think of it like a job application. When you apply for a job, do you expect the people who don't want to work with you to take time out of their busy days to tell you exactly why not? No? That's because business is business, and publishing is business to publishers. No writers like form rejections. But there are other people you can get critiques from, if your work is consistently failing to meet standards. They'll help you find out what the problem is. Don't blame the publishers for doing their job.
From what I understand, you're actually lucky to get any response at all when it's rejected. Taking what dizzyspell said a step further - consider how many queries an agent gets in a day. Now multiply those by how many minutes just to send a standard rejection. Now consider if they stopped and wrote out even a brief explanation each time - that's at least another five minutes for each query. Then total the time spent reading through all those queries to begin with, plus the fulls and partials... There just aren't enough hours in the day...
^That actually makes me feel really really good. Thanks shadowwalker. And I'm a bit under the weather today so it's a great help. Every rejection I've ever had as been personal letters from the editor with references to specific things; I know he at least considered them then.
If you are going to try to become a published writer, get used to rejections. Everyone who puts their work out there gets them. I've already started my collection.
As I understand it, when it's a case of "close, but no cigar" or if there are specific reasons why your work isn't good enough but you show promise, you'll get a brief explanation. If you're getting form rejections, consider that the more elaborate rejection may be your goal or a step in the right direction, and go from there.
Is this for novel length submissions? Because I'd consider it incredibly rude if I got no reply at all to a short story sub. In fact, I specifically don't submit to markets which say they only reply in the case of acceptances.
dittoing dizzy! same goes for agents... and for short story or article submissions as well... despite banz thinking it rude, it's just 'business as usual' for some and not a personal slight...
Ignoring Dash Benny's spam (Just reported it) Yeah, get used to rejections. A writer friend of mine got about 12 rejections before his book got published.
I've learned to ignore it entirely. I've sent dozens of query letters to dozens of different agents, all of whom turned me down without even looking at it. I've even gotten a 'sorry, we'll pass' sent from an Ipad. An Ipad, probably took three seconds to it while he was on break. If I could ignore that, certainly you can take it to the face as well. This may be a little criticism to agents on my part, but I can't say they're as useful to your work as they say they are.
That being said, there are still too many cases where even after you've spent all that time and effort to get even one agent, even that one might still be a thieving crook, or looking to influence your writing with whatever morals they personally may have, regardless of the quality of the book. No offense, of course, to real agents who work well with their clients. Just a reminder to watch out for yourselves when agent hunting.
As what my professors and other writers tell me about rejections. Do not give up and keep moving forward. It might not just be the story that they are not interested in. Sometimes it is who is reading the submission or the time it was submitted. Some stories publishers reject are because they are not interested at the time because of what is "in" or what is of interest of that time. One of my clients had submitted the same story, revised several times, over 52 times before the publisher was interested. Do not give up and keep moving forward.
I'll never forget the rejection I got where he had scrawled across the top of my own query letter, "Not for me, sorry" and sent it back in my SASE. At least he did send me something back, but it always bothered me that he couldn't even spare a scrap of paper to scrawl it across.
I can't stand ill manners, so I don't think I'll ever even explore traditional methods of publishing.
I just keep remembering a story about a kid who wanted to be a great violinist. He meets this expert, and the expert tells him he's not going to be a real violinist. So the kid grows up and does something else. Years later, he meets the expert again, asking for clarification about their meeting so long ago. The expert shrugs and says that he always tells amateurs they're not going to make it. The ones that ignore him and keep going are real violinists. My point is, it really shouldn't matter too much what people say to you. Especially writer people. We're far more nitpicky than most general audiences.
I so agree! I did my first submission a few months ago, and I got a blunt email reply. I thought the story was my best yet, and I got NO feedback. I felt hurt, but then some on here made me feel a whole lot better. This past weekend, I went to a writing conference (my first ever, and SO worth my money and time). Anyway, I paid the extra $40 to have my story that I submitted critiqued by one of the authors presenting, and he said except for a few little things, which we discussed, he thought my story was great! He said the mag that I submitted to NEVER takes first-time, unpublished authors, even though they say they do. And, he thinks it's definitely publishable. So, that was really worth the extra money, in my book, to find out I don't suck! It does knock you, but I found out through this conference that there are places (workshops and conferences) where you can get your stuff critiqued. Even in a writing class, if necessary. I think that's a great idea, so I'm going to pursue that. Anyway, sorry you're annoyed, but hopefully you don't give up!
a major case of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, for anyone wanting to become a published author, imo... there's no greater percentage of 'ill-mannered' people in the agent/traditional publishing business than there are in the the world/society/community you live and work in, so are you also going to become a hermit, to avoid having to deal with all of them, too? would you rather deal with people in the paying publishing world who give you their honest opinions of your work, regardless of how it's delivered, or with people in the vanity press/self-publishing business who'll lie to you about your work, in order to get you to takeyour money?
